Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The Great Uniter?

Obama's first State of the Union is in a few short hours and I was just sitting her wondering if there was anything he could say tonight to make his adversaries happy...or even a little less scared for the future of their country?

He did indeed said one thing recently that made me smile:

“I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” he told Diane Sawyer of ABC News. (source)

Yeah, I'd rather that too.

Obama was billed as the "Great Uniter" -juxtaposed to Bush being the "Great Divider"...but now just one short year after Obama's inaugural speech we see him polling with the BIGGEST DIVIDE of any President thus far:

"Gallup: The 65 percentage-point gap between Democrats' (88%) and Republicans' (23%) average job approval ratings for Barack Obama is easily the largest for any president in his first year in office, greatly exceeding the prior high of 52 points for Bill Clinton." (source)

Let's take a trip back to 8/15/2007 when Obama said: "...in an interview that he has the capacity [Hillary] may lack to unify the country and move it out of what he called "ideological gridlock." (source)

I'm sure they never imagined that Hope & Change would bring a larger divide than the evil Dubya! I'm sure they'd just say we're all racist and it has nothing to do with his policies though.

And I think we know what tonight's strategy will be...what it's always been: Blame Bush.

"...House Democratic leaders said a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) showing a $1.35 trillion deficit in 2010 was the result of policies put in place by President George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress, who controlled the House and Senate until the 2006 elections.

"Today’s CBO report is a clear reminder of the Bush and Republican Congress-era policies that have resulted in the loss of millions of jobs, led to the worst recession since the Great Depression, and turned record surpluses under the Clinton Administration into record deficits," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement..." (source)

I guess Barack's mom never told him that "blame shifting is a sign of immaturity."